I don't really understand why these planeswalkers had to be this bad, honestly. They could have just been okay or somewhat decent, not... garbadge? I feel that this is going to end up working against them as the quality of the planeswalkers in these decks actually decreases some new player's excitement for planeswalker cards overall and players who may have bought one planeswalker deck the first time around, I suspect, won't be doing the same in the future unless something changes.
I agree with you on this point, but I think the reason these planewalkers are so weak is because all of the cards in these decks are considered part of Kaladesh (and are therefore Standard legal) so, for developmental reasons, wanted to make absolutely sure these planeswalkers weren't even close to being tournament playable. (I think they overdid it, though.) As a side note, while the planeswalker tutor spells in these decks only look for these specific iterations, the card that get better if you control the deck's planeswalker only care about a Chandra or a Nissa, so there is a chance (probably very small) that those cards could be viable (especially if Chandra, Torch of Defiance proves to be as good as it looks at first glance).
As for the Modules, I loved the Fifth Dawn Stations and had a janky deck back in the day built around them. These are no Stations, of course - no infinite loops here - but I do like the looping design, and will definitely be playing around with those at the kitchen table. Especially Animation Module's counter granting mode.
The angel hate at WOTC needs to stop. It's annoying and not justified. Angels are second to Dragons as most popular.
It does definitely feel like angels get thrashed more frequently than dragons. I kind of doubt in "Return to Dragons of Tarkir" that what happened to the angels will be anywhere near as bad, most likely just going to be resurrection of the old clans somehow, though I kind of question how they'll do that. I will say that it's definitely a feeling thing, and it's hard to tell how accurate that is overall, but fallen angels is a thing they like to throw in pretty consistently.
I think the problem is that Angels in their natural state are a distraction from the narratives WotC usually wants to tell - powerful agents of Good and Order that can appear from the heavens and eliminate monsters and evildoers with a swipe of a blade potentially steal focus from the intended heroes of the story, be they inhabitants of the plane or Planeswalkers. So whenever a major crisis arises in a setting with established powerful angels, Creative usually devises a reason why the Angels can't solve the problems for the heroes. (It's akin to an old trope in Marvel and DC comics where it would be stated that the Avengers or Superman were busy somewhere else whenever a major crisis arose in New York or Metropolis in another hero's comic.)
That's not to say Wizards hasn't told interesting stories with Angels - Feather, Radiant, "Angel of Vengeance" from The Colors of Magic, and obviously some of recent offerings for the current block. My opinion is that Wizards is taking the easy route by almost always taking powerful angels out of the equation by some contrivance or another when they are afraid of them overshadowing other protagonists, instead of weaving the angel's presence into the tapestry of the story they are trying to tell. Now, I fully acknowledge the storytelling difficulties this creates, and to some extent don't blame Wizards for taking the path of least resistance, but as Jenrik and others have pointed out, "the Angels are all Dead or Useless" is a trope that is becoming noticeably repetitive in Magic storytelling (just like "Superman is off-planet today" got boringly-repetitive whenever DC wanted a story about why, e.g. The Flash had to save the planet by himself this week.)
No, I feel you. I came to the same realization over the course of the past week - Innistrad is gone. Zendikar is crippled, but it can recover. I'm having a hard time believing the same is going to be possible with Innistrad. To the best of my judgement, Innistrad is in at least as dire of a situation as New Phyrexia. My eye developed a twitch as Jenna said "There's no going back" with such glee. You do realize you just killed my favorite plane, right?
We discussed this a while ago, and we came to the conclusion that horror, as a genre and a theme, isn't just the darkness, it's the combination of both the darkness and the light. Horror isn't the things that go bump in the night, it's the frightened villagers running from the bumps in the night. It isn't the bloodthirsty vampire, it's the vampire's victims. If you keep pushing Innistrad further and further into nihilism, then it isn't horror plane anymore. It's just some Eldrazi infested hellscape.
I agree with you about both Horror as a genre in general and Innistrad in particular. Having said that, I'm withholding a bit of judgment because we don't yet know what the endgame for this block is in terms of the larger story. Is this plan for this to be the defeat that makes the Gatewatch realize they need more members and/or they'll never be able to save everyone, but need to step up their game to save whomever they can? (Am I the only one who sees the irony how during BFZ people were saying the Eldrazi should eat Zendikar or they have no credibility as villains in the future, but now that Emrakul forever altering Innistrad is a very real outcome, all of us - myself included - are hoping the heroes beat Emmy with zero further casualties?)
Is this about restoring the credibility of the Eldrazi as future threats? (As time has passed, I feel I understand better the Catch-22 Creative had with BFZ - they needed a crisis large enough to get a group of planeswalkers - lone wolves by nature - to band together to form the Avengers, but then also had to win against impossible odds to establish their credibility.)
Is this block about Liliana, Sorin, Arlinn, and/or Tamiyo either joining the Gatewatch or becoming their ongoing allies?
Is this block the ending of Nahiri's plot arc or just the beginning?
With the added notation that I don't see Wizards permanently destroying Innistrad's setting (for the same reason Maro recently said any future Ravnica block will not likely focus on the conflict with the Gateless), I think it's premature to write off "classic" Innistrad as a setting without knowing what the intended storytelling purpose is for Eldritch Moon. I love Cosmic Horror, but I believe Gothic Horror makes for a far more interesting ongoing setting (for exactly the reason you outlined above - the contrast of Light and Darkness. In true Cosmic Horror, there is no Light or Hope - just as study of how individuals and groups react to the revelation of their utter insignificance and the inevitability of their fates.)
As much as I loved this story, at one point I couldn't stop laughing while I imagined this as a conversation between father and child, with the father starting the conversation with:
"Kid you are not alright, got down to the cellar with me I'll fix it"
Maybe you got the wrong starting here Sorin
The laughter helped over the feelings here unmaking left
Yeah, one of the lines that got me was this exchange:
""Let me help you, my child," the monster says. "I could...cleanse your mind. Make you a proper instrument of virtue again. I'll make you anew."
Never. "If I am not the daughter you want..." I say.
He winces."
It's sad, but it's also like a teenage girl arguing with her parent because the parent doesn't like the new phase they're going through. There's that little bit of Doug Beyer dialogue he has which is always funny and a bit immature. But yeah, laughter quickly turns back into a feel trip.
I agree with pretty much everything everyone has already posted, and wanted to add my take on Sorin's reaction - I think, deep down, he really didthink of Avacyn as a daughter, but refused to admit it to himself (he has only ever referred to her as "his angel" or "his creation") - which is why he reacted so badly to Avacyn making that statement (wincing, then angrily denouncing her as a mere creation).
In the same vein, I also wonder if Avacyn throwing the blame for her actions at his feet will have any lasting impact? While Avacyn seeing Sorin as a monster is (presumably) mainly due to the influence of Nahiri, there is a solid argument that Sorin is a monster, in the sense that he created Avacyn to keep the vampires from over-hunting their prey (and prevent other monsters from poaching their "cattle"). Avacyn had a moment of clarity as to what she was and had become before the end - will Sorin have the same? Sometimes, there is nothing more horrifying than seeing ourselves, not as we believe ourselves to be, but as we actually are.
MaRo actually does imply there was a storytelling mistake that formed the basis of the design mistakes:
"...You'll remember that I walked through how we went about bringing the battle of the Eldrazi versus the Zendikari to life, but I didn't spend much time examining why the story had to be about a battle. The reason for that is that I never examined a different story. Our previous visit ended on a cliffhanger, the cliffhanger implied conflict, and Magic is, at its core, a game about fighting. I never even considered any other possibility. Of course the return to Zendikar was going to be an epic battle between the Eldrazi and the Zendikari. What else could it be?"
I might be reading too much into this, but I think maybe he is implying a story where the heroes have to go on an epic quest to find the means to stop the Eldrazi would have been more true to the spirit of the original Zendikar than depicting an open war between Zendikar and the Eldrazi.
I think at this point, it's safe to conclude that the Raven Man is indeed in Liliana's head - e.g. his panic over Jace penetrating Liliana's defenses, and Jace apparently seeing the Raven Man after starting to worm his way into her mind. In fact, Liliana's surprise at Jace seeing him for an instant suggests that even she has begun to realize he is in her mind and not the real world. The real question is whether the Raven Man is an independent entity that has been possessing Liliana since childhood, or whether he is just a figment of her imagination?
The most fascinating part of this story to me is how nicely it thematically fits into the "descent into madness" setting of Innistrad. The story was literally about Jace (or rather, what he represented to Liliana) and the Raven Man being the angel and demon on Liliana's shoulders and her directly arguing with both of them, being torn between conflicting desires and impulses.
As for the Eldritch Moon situation, I saw no new information, but rather a confirmation: the Nephalia Drownyard is directing mana towards an invisible "moon" in the heavens. If anything, that seems to rule out the "Sea God" hypothesis.
I'm still taking all of this with a grain of salt, but I think there might be a way to know in the very near future if this rumor has any validity:
Curses were a fairly popular element in the original Innistrad block (popular enough to get a new cycle in Commander 2013). As has already been discussed in this thread, Curses seem like a pretty obvious inclusion (along with Traps) for an Egyptian block.
So I propose this: If there are no Curses in Shadows Over Innistrad or Eldrich Moon, then it is very probable it is because they are being held back for another block in the near future, and that could point towards the rumor being true.
Where is "Nahiris attack is the cause of Avacyns "'madness'." coming from?
As I understand it, people are proposing that Nahiri is affecting the Moon (hence "Eldritch Moon")with her powers and thereby corrupting Avacyn. It's a reach, but not entirely impossible.
Stepping back a bit, though, I'd like to suggest that maybe we're looking too deeply into all of this? In the last few years, most of Magic's story beats have all been fairly predictable based on the evidence Wizards provided to us in promotional materials and the first set of each block: The Phyrexians conquer Mirrodin. Jace completes the Maze. Xenagos ascends to godhood and Elspeth must stop him. Sarkhan will travel back in time and bring back the dragons. Kozilek is still on Zendikar.
I'm not knocking these things, and obviously there were plenty of subtleties we couldn't guess (Venser dying to restore Karn, Jace becoming the Guildpact, Heliod killing Elspeth, etc.); what I am suggesting is that when Wizards sets up the story to go in an obvious direction and drops clues to that effect, it pretty much always goes in that direction. (Zendikar not being destroyed is - possibly - the only exception.)
So here is what I am proposing: 1)The Eldrazi Titan confirmed to not be on Zendikar is Emrakul, who is (now) connected to the concept of Corruption. 2)We have direct evidence of corruption on Innistrad - Nahiri and Avacyn's madness, the distorted vampires and demons in card art, and possibly the hints about "spine bugs" from the last story. 3) Nahiri's presence on the plane and madness are already known to us from flavor text, so that cannot be the mystery Jace is solving because it - in itself - isn't the second-set twist they are clearly setting up for Eldritch Moon. The real cause of Nahiri and/or Avacyn's madness is - so far - what is being set up as the big reveal for that set.
All in all, I believe that the obvious conclusion here is that Emrakul is directly or indirectly (perhaps through Nahiri) responsible for events on Innistrad. I'll readily concede there are plenty of other scenarios that can be crafted, but I believe, given how Magic's storytelling usually works, that is the answer Wizards is leading us toward.
I'm not sure if I buy it. Plenty of the themes that could be done with an Egyptian-themed block will be done in Shadows of Innistrad. Graveyard themes? Wouldn't be Egyptian without talking about death and reincarnation. Curses? Yeah, the one thing people think the most when saying Egypt is the Plagues. Zombies? Well, right now Mummies are Zombies, so there's that. Mystery plot? We have freaking clue tokens in Shadows of Innistrad - couldn't go more mystery plot than that. :/
I doubt that WotC would do two full blocks of the exact same stuff minus Werewolves and plus Gods.
This is pretty much my exact thought - I do believe an Egypt-themed block is highly likely in the next five years (popular suggestion, interesting flavor, possibility one of Liliana's demons coming from such a plane, etc.), but right after a return to Innistrad seems like the worst possible time... UNLESS they are deliberately continuing the same themes because we are transitioning from following Jace to following Liliana for a few blocks. But even then, I find that scenario unlikely.
I would want a speciesist GW "my kind is superior!" pw and a monoU "my genius knows no bounds!" pw to round out the team and make sure there's more color representation.
Lastly can we please get a good (read not fully evil) monoB pw? I know it can be done and I don't want it to be Lili, she's wayyyyyy too sadistic for me to root for her.
I can get behind all of these things. (There's even precedent: Dromoka is a specie-ist GW antagonist.) I can just imagine a mono-black Oath - "Since I live in the Multiverse too, I will keep watch."
1
I agree with you on this point, but I think the reason these planewalkers are so weak is because all of the cards in these decks are considered part of Kaladesh (and are therefore Standard legal) so, for developmental reasons, wanted to make absolutely sure these planeswalkers weren't even close to being tournament playable. (I think they overdid it, though.) As a side note, while the planeswalker tutor spells in these decks only look for these specific iterations, the card that get better if you control the deck's planeswalker only care about a Chandra or a Nissa, so there is a chance (probably very small) that those cards could be viable (especially if Chandra, Torch of Defiance proves to be as good as it looks at first glance).
As for the Modules, I loved the Fifth Dawn Stations and had a janky deck back in the day built around them. These are no Stations, of course - no infinite loops here - but I do like the looping design, and will definitely be playing around with those at the kitchen table. Especially Animation Module's counter granting mode.
1
I think the problem is that Angels in their natural state are a distraction from the narratives WotC usually wants to tell - powerful agents of Good and Order that can appear from the heavens and eliminate monsters and evildoers with a swipe of a blade potentially steal focus from the intended heroes of the story, be they inhabitants of the plane or Planeswalkers. So whenever a major crisis arises in a setting with established powerful angels, Creative usually devises a reason why the Angels can't solve the problems for the heroes. (It's akin to an old trope in Marvel and DC comics where it would be stated that the Avengers or Superman were busy somewhere else whenever a major crisis arose in New York or Metropolis in another hero's comic.)
That's not to say Wizards hasn't told interesting stories with Angels - Feather, Radiant, "Angel of Vengeance" from The Colors of Magic, and obviously some of recent offerings for the current block. My opinion is that Wizards is taking the easy route by almost always taking powerful angels out of the equation by some contrivance or another when they are afraid of them overshadowing other protagonists, instead of weaving the angel's presence into the tapestry of the story they are trying to tell. Now, I fully acknowledge the storytelling difficulties this creates, and to some extent don't blame Wizards for taking the path of least resistance, but as Jenrik and others have pointed out, "the Angels are all Dead or Useless" is a trope that is becoming noticeably repetitive in Magic storytelling (just like "Superman is off-planet today" got boringly-repetitive whenever DC wanted a story about why, e.g. The Flash had to save the planet by himself this week.)
3
I agree with you about both Horror as a genre in general and Innistrad in particular. Having said that, I'm withholding a bit of judgment because we don't yet know what the endgame for this block is in terms of the larger story. Is this plan for this to be the defeat that makes the Gatewatch realize they need more members and/or they'll never be able to save everyone, but need to step up their game to save whomever they can? (Am I the only one who sees the irony how during BFZ people were saying the Eldrazi should eat Zendikar or they have no credibility as villains in the future, but now that Emrakul forever altering Innistrad is a very real outcome, all of us - myself included - are hoping the heroes beat Emmy with zero further casualties?)
Is this about restoring the credibility of the Eldrazi as future threats? (As time has passed, I feel I understand better the Catch-22 Creative had with BFZ - they needed a crisis large enough to get a group of planeswalkers - lone wolves by nature - to band together to form the Avengers, but then also had to win against impossible odds to establish their credibility.)
Is this block about Liliana, Sorin, Arlinn, and/or Tamiyo either joining the Gatewatch or becoming their ongoing allies?
Is this block the ending of Nahiri's plot arc or just the beginning?
With the added notation that I don't see Wizards permanently destroying Innistrad's setting (for the same reason Maro recently said any future Ravnica block will not likely focus on the conflict with the Gateless), I think it's premature to write off "classic" Innistrad as a setting without knowing what the intended storytelling purpose is for Eldritch Moon. I love Cosmic Horror, but I believe Gothic Horror makes for a far more interesting ongoing setting (for exactly the reason you outlined above - the contrast of Light and Darkness. In true Cosmic Horror, there is no Light or Hope - just as study of how individuals and groups react to the revelation of their utter insignificance and the inevitability of their fates.)
3
I agree with pretty much everything everyone has already posted, and wanted to add my take on Sorin's reaction - I think, deep down, he really didthink of Avacyn as a daughter, but refused to admit it to himself (he has only ever referred to her as "his angel" or "his creation") - which is why he reacted so badly to Avacyn making that statement (wincing, then angrily denouncing her as a mere creation).
In the same vein, I also wonder if Avacyn throwing the blame for her actions at his feet will have any lasting impact? While Avacyn seeing Sorin as a monster is (presumably) mainly due to the influence of Nahiri, there is a solid argument that Sorin is a monster, in the sense that he created Avacyn to keep the vampires from over-hunting their prey (and prevent other monsters from poaching their "cattle"). Avacyn had a moment of clarity as to what she was and had become before the end - will Sorin have the same? Sometimes, there is nothing more horrifying than seeing ourselves, not as we believe ourselves to be, but as we actually are.
5
"...You'll remember that I walked through how we went about bringing the battle of the Eldrazi versus the Zendikari to life, but I didn't spend much time examining why the story had to be about a battle. The reason for that is that I never examined a different story. Our previous visit ended on a cliffhanger, the cliffhanger implied conflict, and Magic is, at its core, a game about fighting. I never even considered any other possibility. Of course the return to Zendikar was going to be an epic battle between the Eldrazi and the Zendikari. What else could it be?"
I might be reading too much into this, but I think maybe he is implying a story where the heroes have to go on an epic quest to find the means to stop the Eldrazi would have been more true to the spirit of the original Zendikar than depicting an open war between Zendikar and the Eldrazi.
3
The most fascinating part of this story to me is how nicely it thematically fits into the "descent into madness" setting of Innistrad. The story was literally about Jace (or rather, what he represented to Liliana) and the Raven Man being the angel and demon on Liliana's shoulders and her directly arguing with both of them, being torn between conflicting desires and impulses.
As for the Eldritch Moon situation, I saw no new information, but rather a confirmation: the Nephalia Drownyard is directing mana towards an invisible "moon" in the heavens. If anything, that seems to rule out the "Sea God" hypothesis.
2
Curses were a fairly popular element in the original Innistrad block (popular enough to get a new cycle in Commander 2013). As has already been discussed in this thread, Curses seem like a pretty obvious inclusion (along with Traps) for an Egyptian block.
So I propose this: If there are no Curses in Shadows Over Innistrad or Eldrich Moon, then it is very probable it is because they are being held back for another block in the near future, and that could point towards the rumor being true.
1
As I understand it, people are proposing that Nahiri is affecting the Moon (hence "Eldritch Moon")with her powers and thereby corrupting Avacyn. It's a reach, but not entirely impossible.
Stepping back a bit, though, I'd like to suggest that maybe we're looking too deeply into all of this? In the last few years, most of Magic's story beats have all been fairly predictable based on the evidence Wizards provided to us in promotional materials and the first set of each block: The Phyrexians conquer Mirrodin. Jace completes the Maze. Xenagos ascends to godhood and Elspeth must stop him. Sarkhan will travel back in time and bring back the dragons. Kozilek is still on Zendikar.
I'm not knocking these things, and obviously there were plenty of subtleties we couldn't guess (Venser dying to restore Karn, Jace becoming the Guildpact, Heliod killing Elspeth, etc.); what I am suggesting is that when Wizards sets up the story to go in an obvious direction and drops clues to that effect, it pretty much always goes in that direction. (Zendikar not being destroyed is - possibly - the only exception.)
So here is what I am proposing: 1)The Eldrazi Titan confirmed to not be on Zendikar is Emrakul, who is (now) connected to the concept of Corruption. 2)We have direct evidence of corruption on Innistrad - Nahiri and Avacyn's madness, the distorted vampires and demons in card art, and possibly the hints about "spine bugs" from the last story. 3) Nahiri's presence on the plane and madness are already known to us from flavor text, so that cannot be the mystery Jace is solving because it - in itself - isn't the second-set twist they are clearly setting up for Eldritch Moon. The real cause of Nahiri and/or Avacyn's madness is - so far - what is being set up as the big reveal for that set.
All in all, I believe that the obvious conclusion here is that Emrakul is directly or indirectly (perhaps through Nahiri) responsible for events on Innistrad. I'll readily concede there are plenty of other scenarios that can be crafted, but I believe, given how Magic's storytelling usually works, that is the answer Wizards is leading us toward.
1
This is pretty much my exact thought - I do believe an Egypt-themed block is highly likely in the next five years (popular suggestion, interesting flavor, possibility one of Liliana's demons coming from such a plane, etc.), but right after a return to Innistrad seems like the worst possible time... UNLESS they are deliberately continuing the same themes because we are transitioning from following Jace to following Liliana for a few blocks. But even then, I find that scenario unlikely.
1
I can get behind all of these things. (There's even precedent: Dromoka is a specie-ist GW antagonist.) I can just imagine a mono-black Oath - "Since I live in the Multiverse too, I will keep watch."